Mystifying
by TheAUWalker
Summary: There have always been many things that mystify Stein concerning Spirit, but he had never really thought about where it all came from until the incident. It brought them closer together, once again after so long, and he was still so distant. SteinScythe, one-shot, birthday fic for Lialane Graest.


It was mystifying to him why he lived in a bustling, dusty city so hot. People from all over the world, tongues going a mile a minute in foreign languages he could not place, high cheekbones and eyes the color of damp lavender. It was a city full of tales and old cardboard boxes in alleyways, monsters carving up streetlamps and talking scythes. Strong legs to climb the stairs and a box for all your snapshots because you'd never see anything like it. It reminded Stein of a giant junkyard, full of half-finished architectural structures and things so different it was like a puzzle mixed with another.

It didn't stun him, though, he figured out the city and its secrets and he had been mostly everywhere there was to go. He preferred his lab on the outskirts, like a little gray blemish on the hem of a beautiful, multicolored dress. There was the forest at his back and a big of a backyard as he wanted, and no one cared what he left out to rust in the rare rain.

Franken Stein was a man of solitude. He had always been, jealous of loud Justin and his arc of ascent to greatness on his own. Stein could be great, too, but there was Spirit and as much as he loathed the man on occasion he would not abandon him for anything. It was not his pick of a partner but Lord Death seemed to see fate itself and knew to smash them together to become this, the greatest, passing Justin.

So he stayed and when it rained the sky was the color of a drowned man's lips and the weather was pleasant, a chill nipping at exposed skin, the wind singing in his ears and slapping strands of hair against his face like little whips. He could sit on the cold days, be alone where there was a comfortable amount of light filling the room, not bright and hot but indifferent and sad like the two kinds of tourists.

Today.

He was going through another heap of semi-crushed cardboard boxes, another neatly folded pile that he had already scavenged through sitting in the corner. Two piles of things on the floor, keep and trash.

Fifth floor, today, the one with the flight of stairs he needed to fix because they creaked terribly and sounded like the moans of dying men.

It seemed, most of the time, that Stein didn't remember how many rooms and stories were in the lab. He would find old mementos and childhood awards of his, stuffed away in a moldy box inside a small room on the second story, and Marie had been nagging at him for ages to clean and organize it all. He supposed he should, after all, Stein didn't like clutter.

But Marie was gone, off in Oceania for a few years. He was left on his own and it was drowned-man-lip color and he was sorting, cup of tea beside him and the window open to let in the breeze.

The screen rattled absently in its frame.

Stein rummaged around and then pulled out a dirty, smudged picture.

It was of him and his parents. His fingers slowly tightened around the edge of the photograph. It had been a long time since he was reminded of his parents, long gone, buried by the old church they had so dutifully attended, without him. They tried to take him once and the heat of disgust and fury radiating off his small being was enough to persuade his parents to let him stay home and vivisect a rabbit.

He wasn't fond of them, but like Marie had once said, they were still his parents.

It had been almost ten years. He left the house early and they died together, from cancer and an accident.

The news that they were dead hadn't really shaken him. It was just another fact to process, and within a few days he had forgotten about it.

_Oh._

Stein's hand hovered over the trash pile.

It was the only thing he had left of them, and some more humane instinct in him made him keep it.

Marie would have wanted him to.

He continued sorting through the box.

Death of people close to him was of a bleak, nonchalant situation. Stein didn't think he was capable of grief, he just accepted the fact and moved on. If someone like Spirit died, who he cared about, maybe it would bother him.

But it was just death. They were gone from his life and would never come back, and he supposed that did pertube him a little. More of an inconvenience. Dealing with others' grief was not something he did well with-Marie's tears always bounced straight off him. He didn't think he was able of compassion, either.

It was a rainy, cold day, the droplets making a distant plunking noise on the roof and the light through the window a soft grey, casting the room in a lonely grayscale shadow. Stein sat back on his heels and surveyed the six or so boxes he had left to go through, several more in the corner, empty of their contents.

Maybe he would take a break. His knees were starting to ache.

Stein rose, a hand on the doorknob for support. He made his way with a sigh down the stairs, remembering at the last minute to double back and take his tea down with him. There was someone waiting in his kitchen when he came down, and Stein casually placed his mug on the counter, ignoring the huddled mess that was Spirit on the floor. It had happened before, his place was sometimes the location where Spirit came to sit off his hangover.

As long as Spirit didn't disturb him or his anguished my-family-is-wrecked cries weren't too loud, Stein let him be.

"Afternoon, senpai."

There was a strange noise coming from Spirit's throat and with a moment's distaste Stein wondered if he was going to throw up all over the tile.

Then the meister realized he was crying.

"Senpai?"

Stein knelt to Spirit's level.

He was not holding a drink, but clutching onto the counter for dear life. He was gaping, shaking, eyes fixed upon the floor and tears rolling down his pale cheeks. There was something odd about it, like his heart had been ripped out of his chest, and Stein had never seen him cry like that.

"Spirit?"

Stein put a hand on his shoulder.

It was scaring him, a bit. Spirit wouldn't talk and he looked so utterly lost and empty that Stein's mind slowly came to a possible conclusion before he even wanted to suggest it.

"What happened?"

"M...ma..."

Stein's hand tightened.

"Maka..."

"What about her? Is she hurt?"

A horrible wail rose from Spirit's chest.

"_My baby girl..."_

"Spirit, _what?_"

"Maka is gone!"

The words rang through the empty room and Stein knew what kind of gone it was and a cold feeling plunged through his stomach and rattled his bones, constricting his lungs and making his thoughts go staccato for a minute.

It had only been six years since she had graduated; she had been with Soul in some foreign country. The great Maka Albarn, fallen. He had taught her like one of his own, cared for her like one of his own, because she was his best friend's daughter and her safety meant the world to the both of them. Such potential, she reminded Stein of him when he was young and had pale fingers wrapped around the handle of a scythe as well.

And now she was gone.

"_My baby..._"

There was sort of a deranged, jerky movement pattern as Stein tried to force his jaw to work. Time was stopping, slowing, the world ringing in his ears.

Spirit's knees were bloody and his pants torn, the hems muddy, his head bowed low and the usual luster his red hair shone with was absent.

Stein didn't ask how. It didn't matter.

-o-o-

Three months.

Franken Stein was a selfish man.

Spirit had not left Death City(_yet_) and Stein was almost thankful that Maka died somewhere foreign-he was not happy that she was dead at all, of course, but it was almost a comfort to now have to watch his best friend pack up and move somewhere where bitter Stein couldn't keep an eye on him

There had been a funeral, a memorial plaque in Shibusen, and a surprising absence of Chupra Cabra's most famous customer.

Spirit had stopped drinking, something Maka had always asked him to do but he always _forgot _and to Stein there wasn't really a point-there was no Maka around to see, but he couldn't judge, he had no family to tell him what or not to do. He preferred it that way but the experimental side of him was always interested in Spirit's family-he was always inquisitive to the things he didn't have.

Three months, Stein testy and snappy like the wind's bite and Spirit numb like Stein's favorite cold, and they had an unspoken meeting.

Teenagers again, smoking their way through packs and packs of cigarettes when a mission went bad and they were both jarred, teenagers when they didn't have daughters and students and these many troubles. They shouldn't have this many, no matter how old, responsibilities be damned, they should not be so sick of life and so young.

Stein didn't know where Soul or anyone else was and he didn't really want to know. He didn't want to bring it up ever again and shoved it away like he did with everything else that could bring out an inkling of emotion.

Here they were, now, sharing a cigarette and trying to pretend everything was fine and normal.

It was mystifying to Stein how everything had just _changed_. It wasn't really fair to them, people weren't supposed to be murdered. Some God there was now, changing people when everything was fine, and the world was not perfect but it was not supposed to take children.

Not like that.

-o-o

"Senpai, wake up."

His leg was prickling, bloodless, and he wasn't going to be nice and let the other man sleep all day.

Cruel, rather, it was not a habit he could allow Spirit to develop.

An old memory flitted through his head-back when they were young, he had once seen Nygus kiss Sid awake.

But it was not the time-the man in front of him was still in love with Kami and too sad, it was not the time and it mystified him how it could have once been, with everything so different now, and Stein was not like that, he was like a vulture waiting on the outskirts and watching, waiting, but only that.

Stein managed to get his leg out from under the weapon and shook him harshly on the shoulder, his fingernails digging into the silky material of Spirit's stained suit jacket. It smelled strongly of smoke, they both did.

"Senpai."

For a moment, he imagined Spirit not waking up, the man's lungs so black and rotted that he would never wake again. But the weapon opened his eyes blearily, finding Stein's gaze, waiting for his three seconds of peace before Maka.

"Stein?"

He was sprawled, clothes rumpled and eyes tired, not wanting to get up _again _and do another day of being sluggish.

"Coffee, senpai?"

Spirit pinched the bridge of his nose and released a shuddering sigh, nodding.

Maybe they could go back to stable.

It was a silly hope, maybe, but three months and little encouragements, shows of emotions for his best friend, the only person who mattered enough. He was the only one who would ever be close to Stein, the only one who he would allow to be. Stein did not think he would be able to function without Spirit-he would be like a broken clock, ticking until something caught and a spring got too tangled and the gears spun to a grinding halt.

Spirit took Stein's outstretched, offered hand, pale and scarred, and thought it could be maybe be a tolerable day, where his head wasn't spinning with lost cries and too-heavy memories like thick, sticky cakes, bittersweet.

And to Stein, it wasn't so mystifying why he'd stayed in Death City anymore.


End file.
